Active Shooter Response

This website was created for the education of students in how to respond to an active shooter, what to look for, and how to interact with police. The majority of our project was research and data collection leaving there to be no cost evaluation, risk evaluation, or risk mitigation. We as a group do believe that it is unfortunately critical that students are educated on this topic in this day and age.

Sadly, when these incidents occur, the shooter usually has the advantage of blending in as they are typically a student, custodian, or someone who would not look out of place on campus. The typical weapons of shooters are usually an AR-15 style platform, and a handgun firing either the 9mm round or the .45 caliber round. They do often acquire these legally, and if they cannot do it themselves, they can usually get someone else to buy it for them. There are 4 different possible first responders: School Resource officers, normal patrol police officers, Special Weapons and Tactics officers, and Special Response Tactical units. Knowing these people is critical as they will be coming in alone with a weapon as well and it may be hard to differentiate between them and a shooter. The ideal response of students is to get to a closed room and barricade the door. Although it can be hard to make the door completely secure, even blockading it to where it is a struggle to open the door is worth it. Shooters often will not waste time on a door that is hard to open as they usually are trying to move quickly and sadly, inflict as much damage as possible. If it does come to a confrontation, using something, other than just your hands, as a weapon against the shooter will be helpful be it a laptop, a book, or even part of a table. People are often never “ready” for these things to occur, as we hope they never do, but having some idea of how to react is important. It could save the lives of you and other people in your vicinity.